Liquor Traffic

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 261, 13 November 1901, Page 1

Liquor Traffic

(To the Editor of the Times.) Sir, —Much has been both written anc said concerning strong drink. Some o! the ablest men and women have triad tc grapple with it. We all remember the late Mr Gough, and how 1 hard he worked in order to try and get people to leave the drink alone. I have never seen the hian : but I have read some of his lectures. We remember, too, the late Cardinal Manning, and how hard he worked to try and mivke people sober, and we have both heard dud seen some of the forcible lectures delivered by gentlemen in New Zealand. I will only mention Mr Isitt and Mr Glover. Both gentlemen we know to be good and forcible speakers, drawing word-pictures of tho awful woe and misery brought about through the use of strong drink. Both these gentlemen are, no doubt, thoroughly sound on the question, but I noticed that during their lectures they related some stories so funny that they brought forth laughter and applause. Now, sir, there is no funny side to the liquor question. There is nothing to laugh at, because where there is misery there is no room for anything but pity and consolation. Sir, this drink question is like consumption or cancer. It has been growing and growing for hundreds of years; it has got into our systems; it has become hereditary; and so cannot be cured in a day. Go away back to tho early days. Christ made water into wine. Go still further back to Numbers xxvii., 7, and, again, if I remember rightly, David said : “ Drink strong drink and be merry, and dance before the Lord.” Sir, it was the glory of our forefathers to sit and drink until each one went under the table, and ho who could stand the greatest amount of drink would be the hero. Of course we are all well aware of the different mothods by which this giant evil is being attacked, but I have not as yet seen where it is proposed to attack tho brewers, and distillers. Maybe you are familiar with the saying, “ Stop the supply and tho demand will cease," and Sir, I am inclined to accept it as true, for

if there is no more made, then none can be used. I would not care to condemn tho Synod for tho action they have taken in the matter, because as I have already pointed out, it is the outcome of hundreds of years, aud also it has become a huge monopoly, and houses only change hands at enormous figures, and I don’t for a moment doubt, that if tho State assumed control of the traffic, gradually it could, and would be in time, worked out of existence. Consumption cannot be stamped out at once, nor any other disease, and the craving for strong drink has become a disease, therefore it will take time and treatment to eradicate it ; but I say to the prohibitionists, pound away, educate, and agitate, and in time the horrible disease of drink will bo a thing of the past—will be clean wiped out of existence.—l am, etc., Chips.